Many people feel helpless when it comes to climate change. The consequences are coming at us thick and fast, outstripping both scientific predictions and a lacklustre policy response. So it’s quite empowering to realise that we can make a difference with the knowledge that is already out there — if we start sharing it and connecting the right people together.

It’s important to prepare client-observers who have no previous experience with these kinds of interviews, to let them know what to expect, and to avoid pitfalls that can diminish the quality of the research process and results. Here are some guidelines researchers can share and discuss beforehand in order to ensure the process is equally fruitful for researcher and observer.

The ubiquity of service design tools and artefacts is also a cue for pioneers in the field to move on and focus on new frontiers. At the Service Design Global Conference in Madrid, Jamin Hegeman of Capital One pointed to one of these frontiers. He argued that it is time for service design to move beyond projects that just create new service concepts, and to focus more on ways to effectively contribute to the long-term, sustainable management of service delivery and ongoing improvement of customer experiences.

When research activities get going in earnest, a lot is produced. If treated too casually, the mass of audio files and transcripts, flip-overs and mini-posters full of post-its, photos, interview notes and feedback mails can quickly turn into a massive hairball that no-one can unpick.

There are now more things connected to the internet than the number of people in the world. Many of these devices are inside our home, from Bluetooth speakers to smart coffee machines and fridges. In the future, even our plates and curtains might be hooked up to the internet. The house will then resemble a lab, in which we are the studied subjects. How much alcohol do we drink? How often do we wash our hair, or cut our nails? Are we snacking more than usual? Spending longer in front of the mirror? Maybe the homes of the future will know.

What is a city without its people? Not much. But sometimes, in all the technology talk around cities, the focus on people gets lost. How can we foster a citizen-led approach to smart city development, and how might that change how smart cities are defined and realised?

That was the question we posed during another walking workshop we were recently invited to conduct, this time in the context of the open Internet movement. MozFest, Mozilla’s annual festival, returned to London to host an international community of educators, technologists, artists, journalists and activists, as well as anyone else engaged with the challenges arising within online privacy, web literacy, and the realisation of a healthy, open Internet.

In our ‘walkshop’, we wanted to explore the future of the connected, online city. Specifically, we wanted to explore and champion a bottom-up, emergent…

While working on a series of projects aimed at improving the experience of pedestrians and bicyclists, I was reading Andy Clark’s book Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind. This proved an unusually fruitful combination, even though the book is about perception, not about design. But in the context of these design problems, Clark’s explanations became interesting points of departure which often reshaped my perspective.

His phrase: ‘a web of humans and machines, each of which are now busily anticipating the other’ seems to me a perfect description of what our busiest urban public spaces are becoming. As ‘smart’ systems become more prevalent, physical touchpoints are being minimised or disappearing altogether, from whole cashier-operated checkout counters to familiar everyday features like taps, handles…

In September STBY was involved in three events that all seemed to trigger a similar discussion. In Amsterdam we co-organised an explorative workshop with our partner What Design Can Do, to discuss Gender Based Violence with experts in the field, mainly from NGOs. In London, as part of London Design Festival, we co-organised a full day workshop with the department for Global Innovation Design at the Royal College of Art to ponder the question “Where next for humanitarian innovation?” with an international group of academics, designers and experts from NGOs. And we also participated in a London Design Festival panel of fellow designers and researchers working in public administration, organised by Policy Lab at the Cabinet Office.

Across these three events we engaged with a mixed bunch of people, backgrounds, expertises and topics. Yet a common pattern in the discussions…

Following up on the success of our annual master course together with the Business School of the University of Amsterdam, we have the opportunity to again offer an executive course for professionals on Design Driven Business Innovation. The course starts in September 2017, and registration (via UvA website) is open. You can also send us an email of course. Be quick though, as there will be only 20 places available!

Innovation with a design approachInnovation is a big challenge for many organisations. It touches on different parts and dimensions of a business: services, products, customer experience, customer value, delivery processes, revenue models, etc. One of the recent developments in the field of innovation management is the rise of a design-driven approach to innovation. Designing new products, services, experiences and business models based on deep customer…

What does ‘walkability’ mean? Exploring more walkable cities could help us envision streets that can be used and enjoyed by everyone. Much has been written about the benefits of walking, but not all cities facilitate it equally well.

We recently got a chance to explore this by hosting a ‘walking workshop’ at the Unusual Suspects Festival, which aims to bring together an unusual mix of voices and audience together to share experiences and challenge each other to think differently.

The aim of the workshop was to help us imagine more walkable streets. This was an opportunity to collect stories and understand how we inhabit and move around public spaces. In pairs, participants were given a map with their appointed tour and an activity pack of prompts and tasks to complete along their journey.

The development of wearables is continuing apace. Established luxury and tech brands, newcomers, startups, have all begun creating serious offerings. Consumers can already choose from a range of products, from wristbands to watches to rings and other kinds of devices.

Expectations

Consumers’ expectations seem to fall into two categories: smart and pretty.

‘Smarter’ means that just raw data is not enough any more. We seem to expect recommendations or a program tailored to the individual. Even simple data like numbers of steps needs to be interpreted and can mean very different things, depending on what a person’s goals are. So customisation as well as contextual data analysis are important areas of development.

‘Prettier’ wearables prioritise fashion, and are being created by fashion brands mainly in the form of hybrid…

On May 23, What Design Can Do launched their Climate Action Challenge along with their partners the IKEA Foundation and the Autodesk Foundation. As research partner for the challenge, we conducted four months of research before crafting the briefs and background information package. We also helped run a live 36-hour Design Jam during What Design Can Do 2017 last week for students and young professionals.

The Climate Action Design Jam was a jam-packed, 36-hour bonanza of brainstorming, ideation, prototyping and pitching. The goal of the jam was to come up with ideas for designs that could be submitted to this year’s Climate Action Challenge. Over four workshops spread across two days, a total of 16 experts coached students and young professionals on: how to approach the problem of climate change adaptation; how to brainstorm effectively; why you should prototype;…

In a workshop hosted by STBY during the Service Design Days in Barcelona on the 5th and 6th of October 2018, we prototyped ideas for new service concepts in response to the What Design Can Do Clean Energy Challenge.

Gone are the days of lugging around clunky recorders, hefty cameras and brick-like hard drives to interviews and observation sites. The design researchers of today need only bring along a smartphone hooked up to a few complementary gadgets and software to capture and save quality audio, video and images.

STBY recently went to Nairobi to work with local design research partners on the preparations for the latest Global Design Challenge on Clean Energy. Through workshops with creatives and energy experts we explored local energy issues and developed a better understanding of the Kenyan perspectives on climate change.

When research activities get going in earnest, a lot is produced. If treated too casually, the mass of audio files and transcripts, flip-overs and mini-posters full of post-its, photos, interview notes and feedback mails can quickly turn into a massive hairball that no-one can unpick.

There are now more things connected to the internet than the number of people in the world. Many of these devices are inside our home, from Bluetooth speakers to smart coffee machines and fridges. In the future, even our plates and curtains might be hooked up to the internet. The house will then resemble a lab, in which we are the studied subjects. How much alcohol do we drink? How often do we wash our hair, or cut our nails? Are we snacking more than usual? Spending longer in front of the mirror? Maybe the homes of the future will know.